Gold drops of a similar character to those just described have been frequently found in the Kentish graves, as have also one or two crosses very similar to the one engraved on a previous page ([fig. 445]). Circular pendants of gold and other materials, decorated with enamelled or raised interlaced and other ornaments, or set with garnets and other stones, are also found. Among the most interesting of this class of pendant ornaments are coins to which loops have been attached. Examples have been found in Kent and elsewhere, and show that the fashion to some extent indulged in at the present day of wearing coins attached to watch chains, etc., is at least of Anglo-Saxon origin.
CHAPTER XVI.
Anglo-Saxon Period—Buckets—Drinking-cups of wood—Bronze Bowls—Bronze Boxes—Combs—Tweezers—Châtelaines—Girdle Ornaments—Keys—Hair-pins—Counters, or Draughtmen, and Dice—Querns—Triturating Stones, etc.—Conclusion.
Buckets, so called, and very appropriately, from their close resemblance in form to our modern vessels bearing that name, are occasionally found in Anglo-Saxon graves. They are small wooden vessels bound round with hoops or rims of bronze, more or less ornamented, and have a handle of the same metal arched over their tops. Of course in every case the wooden staves of which they were composed, and which were of ash, are decomposed, the hoops, handle, and mountings alone remaining. They vary very much in size; one from Bourne Park had the lower hoop twelve inches in diameter, and the upper one ten inches, and the whole height appears to have been about a foot; the handle was hooked at its ends exactly the same as in our present buckets, and fitted into loops on the sides; it had three looped bronze feet to stand upon. Other examples only measure four or five inches in diameter. The example here engraved ([fig. 460]) was found in Northamptonshire, along with other remains. It is composed of three encircling hoops of bronze, and has its handle and attachments also of the same metal.
Fig. 460.
Fig. 461.
The next example ([fig. 461]) is from Fairford, in Gloucestershire, and is three inches in height, and four inches in diameter. The hoops and mountings are of bronze. Another example, which I give for the purpose of comparison, is from Envermeu, in Normandy ([fig. 462]). Of the use of these utensils nothing certain, of course, is known, but it is conjectured they were used for bringing in mead, ale, or wine, to fill the drinking-cups—the objection to this as a general rule being their very small size. “The Anglo-Saxon translation of the Book of Judges (vii. 20) rendered hydrias confregissent, by ‘ꞇo-bꞃœcon pa bucaꞅ,’ i.e. ‘they broke the buckets.’ A common name for this vessel, which was properly called buc, was œscen, signifying literally a vessel made of ash, the favourite wood of the Anglo-Saxons.”
